Emanuel Huffs, Puffs (May Have Threatened to Burn Legislator's House Down)

Regarding the questions asked by NBC5's Ahern - it’s not about Rahm sending his kids to a private school. It’s about Rahm’s children attending a school whose guiding educational standards are in direct opposition to the “standards” that Rahm is pushing into Chicago’s city schools.

This means that Rahm’s kid can have a bad day and bomb a standardized test without their grade affecting the teacher’s holiday bonus or job. Oh wait I forgot - U of C Lab schools don’t submit their students to NCLB standardized tests and
their teachers aren’t made to “compete” for merit wages based on student test scores.

Rahm needs to answer to this duplicitous reality.

Anyone that believes that Lab School teachers aren't being rated as to their effectiveness is living in a dream world.
As a private school, U of C can bounce their asses in a second if they think a teacher isn't any good.
These kids are the children of some of the brightest people in the city. Over 50% are the children of U of C professors.  Those professors aren't going to let their kids be taught by some fool that can't spell like some city teachers.

"duplicitous"

Interesting choice of word. Any idea as to whether the teachers at the Lab School are unionized? Any idea as to whether they are made to compete for merit raises on any basis? Any idea as to whether they can be fired for unsatisfactory performance?

I am all for merit raises based solely on a teacher's effectiveness. I am all for divorcing "effectiveness" from test scores. Who opposes that? Oh, right. The union.

Are Lab teachers in the union? Yes, if they want to be. 
Are Lab teachers submitted to merit pay scams? No. 
Can they be fired for substandard performance? Yes.
Does the final decision on Lab teacher performance reviews rest solely on their students' standardized test scores, which are developed by for-profit companies and graded by anonymous non-teachers at $10 bucks an hour?
No.  

"Merit pay scams." Capitalism, you mean? Because that is what the rest of us live with. Standardized test scores were an "objective" means to allow teachers to be evaluated. Once upon a time the unions favored them because it was more objective than an evaluation based on observation. That didn't work out, so the fallback position is that "merit" = "scam?" Hard to imagine that the CTU keeps being buried by Rahm and Brizzard in the P.R. game.

By the way, your criticism of the standardized tests is inapt. A test developed by a for-profit company can be as valid as any other test. That is essentially an ad hominem attack. A scantron machine can grade as well as someone making $10 (and as a CPS graduate I took a lot of scantron tests). Why don't you argue that the tests are invalid because they (a) don't effectively measure what they are intended to measure, or (b) effectively measure something inappropriate for the intended use? In other words, argue that the tests themselves are flawed.

P.S. You know how the teachers always say the parents suck, are stupid, and are not sufficiently involved. Yeah. I am a parent in the city of a kid about to start school. This should go WONDERFULLY.

My criticism of standardized tests isn't "inapt." 
It's dead-on, and the word you were looking for was "inEpt." 
Thanks for playing.

Actually, half-ass, inapt means something different from inept. Holy shit, please tell me you're not a teacher. Also, your criticism was stupid and ill-considered.

Actually, half-ass, inapt means something different from inept. Holy shit, please tell me you're not a teacher.

Inapt is another way of saying "awkward," which yes - you are. 

"Not apt; not appropriate or suitable." See, that *can* be awkward, but is a different word with a different sense. Things not appropriate sometimes are awkward, but somethings are just inappropriate, or unsuitable. And people say the schools are failing . . .
I realize that I am beating a very stupid and dead horse here, since you have resorted to misdirection and personal attacks. Still, just one time I would like someone who comes out guns blazing about tests to make the right point and make it well. Instead, there is the one CTU talking point, then a hot mess of indignity and personal attacks.

Call it "misdirection and personal attacks" if you must, but in the real world the rest of us call it TRUTH. 

Stop with the Ahern thing. This was not a blow up. Ahern went somewhere the mayor will not go and he made it clear to her that he was never going there. He didn't threaten her, yell, swear, or anything else.

As for Karen Lewis . . . yeah. Call me jaded, but since most of what comes out of her mouth is bullshit, I call bullshit on this as well.

I hate to say it, but this is a dead story that you keep flogging. There are not going to be any more dead fish. Rahm is older a wiser. He may swear sometimes, but who the fuck doesn't?

Nothing to see here.

"I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!"

-- Excerpt from a draft of the Mayor's 2011 Holiday Message to the City

My actual quote was "the Rahm Emanuel who is a volcanic, intemperate, untended fire hose of profanity is largely a myth," which I supported with quotes from those who know him well who acknowledge that he's an intense, privately profane man, but one who uses his temper rather than losing it. Which is why I will double down on my prediction that we'll never see him have a public melt-down as soon as I decipher the insult above from the anonymous troll. 

Is there a Rahm meltdown betting pool? How can I get in on it?

When Rahm stomps out of interviews, drops F-bombs and berates those with whom he disagrees by calling them "retarded," he's USING his temper rather than losing it?  Good to know. 

Coming from Eric Zorn, the Trib's version of the Sun-Times' Dippy Doper...that is not surprising.

Andy Samberg's impressions of Rahm on SNL seems quite fitting. Not to mention hilarious.